Flowers and Butterflies with Bling (part the first)

Good evening, peeps and I hope you've all had a fantastic day!  I've been for a session at the gym and been crafting so I'm feeling fairly virtuous!

Anyhoo, I thought I'd just pop in and show you the results of crafting today and yesterday.  This project was very much 'design as you go' - nothing new there then!  I was inspired by a lovely young lady who was demonstrating on the Which Craft stand at the Harrogate Show last month and she was making lovely cards using these Stampendous designs.  I'm afraid I didn't get her name but I determined to create something similar using Spellbinders Dies instead of the pre-cut Which Craft Additions.

This is the first example created this way:

and here is another piccy taken from a slight angle so that you can see the jotting panel inside:

The DPs are from Bo Bunny and Basic Grey and the sentiment stamp is an oldy from my stash.  I'll be teaching folks how to make this card and another one (when it's done!) on Tuesday 1 May at Samuel Taylor, Roseville Street, Leeds and at the Brighouse store on Thursday 10 May - it would be great to see you there!

Thank you for looking and reading my ramblings and I'll see you again soon!

Hugs

Brayer-phobia

Good morning peeps!  Are you surprised to see another post from me so soon?  Anyhoo, I thought I'd just pop onto here briefly and show you some cards for a forthcoming workshop over at Craftrange at Burnley on Saturday 28th April.

On my various travels I meet a lot of ladies who've bought a brayer, usually having watched Barbara Gray demonstate at a show or on Create and Craft TV, and the brayer is still idling in its box never having been used because they're afraid they won't be able to master the technique or maybe they used it once and got stripes!  I hope to release a few such ladies from their brayer-phobia on this workshop and these are the cards we'll be making in a morning and an afternoon workshop.

If you're within commuting distance of Craftrange, I'd love to see you there!

I hope you enjoyed this quick post.

Hugs

Tilda's in the Strawberry Patch

Good morning, peeps!  Have you dried out yet? - what dreadful weather we had yesterday and I know some people are really suffering so, if you're one of them, I hope the water is going away.

Well, over at Polka Doodles we're having a Red and White Challenge to mark St George's Day next Monday so I printed some wonderful red and white paper from the fabulous Sugar Plum Daisy CD (doesn't it remind you of strawberry flowers?) and then created this little scene for Tilda to play in:

I'm not sure those red and white toadstools would be growing  so close to the strawberries but, hey! it works in card-land!  The whole thing was, of course, coloured with Copics and Prisma Pencils and I must say it was great to get back to some colouring.

I added the 'strawberry leaves'using a Marianne Designs die - one of my faves and made up the strawberry flowers using an EK Success Small Retro Flower Punch.  It seems you have to be somewhat eagle eyed to spot one of these but they are around if you search and it's one of the most useful punches in my collection - I just cut a small notch out of the end of each petal to change the shape slightly.  Go here on this blog to see a little tutorial on how to make these flowers with colour added.

I also added another Marianne Designs die, this time LR051, shaped as a vine and a little spray of flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts to add a little depth to the scene.  Some ribbon from my stash was the finishing touch.

Whilst we're on ared and white theme, if there are any of you lovely peeps that knit, please take a peek at this post from the very talented Dawny P about the poor Fish and Chip Babies in Africa and see if you can help.  I've knitted this little contribution in red and there's another blue one on my needles as I type.  They knit up in a flash and are so easy to make - I'll be adding more to the collection as the weeks pass.

Thanks again for looking today and I do hope you'll join in the challenge with us to celebrate the slaying of the dragon!!

Hugs

I've been published!

Good morning, peeps!

Yes, it's finally happened - one of my projects is in print!  Polka Doodles have released issue 2 of the Pen and Paper Circle Club magazine, 'The Creative Chronicle' and I produced a card featuring watercolouring for this issue.  Of course, unless you were fortunate enough to pre-order it, I'm afraid you're too late to get a copy.  However, the good news is that you can pre-order issue 3 if you follow this link.  It really is superb value for money with 12 stamps and a CD containing 130 coordinating backing papers for you to print as well as other goodies.

Anyhoo, without further ado, here's a piccy of my project for the current issue:

..... I hope you like it.

I'll be back tomorrow with my card for this week's Polka Doodles Challenge.  Thank you so much for looking today and here's hoping your day includes some crafting fun!

Hugs

Flutterfly Fairy Gracie

Good morning, peeps and a very Happy Easter to you all!

Today I have a card for the Polka Doodles Challenge this week, which is to create a card for a 'big number' birthday and I hope you're all going to join in with us!

My card celebrates a 40th birthday and here it is:

The image is one of the Fairy Flutterfly stamps, Gracie and I just love her hair and her funky tights!  She's coloured with Copics, Promarkers and Prisma pencils and I've stamped her on to a Go Kreate die cut shape that's distressed at the edges with Spun Sugar DI.  The gorge paper is printed from the new Sugar Plum Daisy CD which is overflowing with the cutest images, papers, sentiments and all kinds of goodies - the numbers on the 'stop' were printed from there too!

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the lighting right to show the lovely embossing on the corners that were cut from a lovely Marianne Die and they look a bit plain without it but plain they definitely ain't!

The ribbon is from my stash and these are the Copics I used:

Skin:  E000, E00, E21, R20, R11
Hair:  E50, E53, E33
Top:  RV00, RV02, Pink Carnation Promarker and Raspberry pencil
Shorts:  BG10, BG11, Tea Green Promarker and Muted Turquoise pencil
Boots:  G12, G14, Apple Green and Cool Grey 50% pencils
Wings:  V000, V01, V13 and bright pink and clear Wink of Stella Pens
The tights and flowers are a combination of the colours already mentioned.

I drew the flower stems and leaves with a Whipsers black marker pen but the flowers themselves are a part of the stamp plate, as is the sentiment used.

Thank you for looking today, this was such a fun image to colour and I hope you enjoyed seeing it as much as I enjoyed making it!

Hugs

Something 'A Little Bit Different'

Good morning, peeps!

Well, did you watch Sheena presenting her new stamps on the Create and Craft Channel yesterday?  I have a stinking cold at the moment and it was a good excuse to sit on the sofa for a couple of hours and have a good chuckle at Sheena's new A Little Bit Different range.  Here's what I did with the stamps:

The sky on this 'Just 4 Ewe' card was created with a cloud shaped card template and Adirondack Stonewashed ink brushed over it, whereas the sheep were coloured with Copics.

On this one, I created the sunset sky with Twinkling H2Os and use Distress Inks to colour the sheep.  The DP is a really old one from the depths of my stash!

 

It's a shame that it can't be shown on a still photograph but the Silly Moo with the crown is cut out and mounted on an Action Wobble Spring so that she dances on the card if she's given a gentle nudge - what a silly moo!!  Both these cows are painted with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink and the gold crown and its jewels are painted with Twinkling H2Os.

 All of the effects on this image are created with Distress Inks and the background is embossed Coordinations card and I used the Darice Clouds embossing folder and then sanded over the raised bits.

I hope you find this new range of stamps to be fun - I certainly think they are and it's good to be able put some humour into our crafting!

Thank you for looking today and I'll be back again soon with a Polka Doodles Challenge.

Hugs